Hair Algae?!! Not in my tank!! It's not possible!

[lostwhirley]

Hello.
Recently, I've started to accrue some hair algae in my tank. The strange thing is that my Phosphates are 0 ppm.

ZERO!

I have added some liverock, and changed my lights from 2 -175 10k to 2 -250 DE 14K. Could the light be adding growth the the hair algae?

1 month ago the hair algae was non-existant. My tank has been established for over a year.

I'm a little baffled because my phosphates are at ZERO. I thought that hair algae has a hard time to survive with zero phosphates...
Any thoughts?

[bklynmet]

Geoff, where are your nitrates at? Have you done anything to your tank - possibly as a result of trying to eliminate another problem - something that may have caused another cycle to occur? Taking it light with the feedings? Stocking levels ok? Maintaining regular water changes? What kind of snails and about how many of the different species do you have in there?

I remember last year you had some HA in there.. did it ever go away or were there some patches that remained?

[lostwhirley]

It went away. I think I figured out what the cause was. I haven't replaced my DI cartrige for a while and found that my PPM was over 30.

I also replaced my carbon.

I have done several changes recently, all could have caused HA. Changed lights, added 50 lbs of liverock, DI cartrdige needed to be replaced, carbon needed to be replace.

Hopefully, with a combination of replacing/fixing these things, HA will be gone. I'm just suprised that my phosphates are 0, yet I still have HA.

wierd.

[Adnuces]

Often your phosphates/nitrates will read zero and you have an algae problem as the algae is using the phos/trates up......and they are not measurable......doesn't mean that they don't exist

[grallster]

I agree with Adnuces--the algea may be keeping the nitrates and phosphates at 0 by using it for growth. Do you have a refugium? If not, throwing some noninvasive macro in your tank temporarily may help. A large water change wouldn't hurt too.